Shelley Atkins is a role model who provides loving guidance and support every day to many of the most disadvantaged children in Washoe County, Nevada. For several years, Shelley has supervised and mentored emotionally and behaviorally disturbed adolescent boys and girls.
Earlier in her life, Shelley was not the positive influence and community leader that she is today. At the age of 14, she was confined to a locked mental health facility for emotional treatment. Over the next three years, Shelley lived outside of her home in five different residential treatment facilities. At 16, she attempted suicide. During this period of her life, Shelley was arrested and detained in a juvenile facility a number of times. "I was in nine different school settings in high school," says Shelley, "and if someone should had given up on me, it was me."
Shelley ultimately flourished in a state-supported therapeutic group home. "I graduated from an alternative school setting and from what many would call the county's dropout school," she explains. "I can honestly say that if that had not been available to me, I never would have graduated and who knows where I would be today."
She left the system and began her life anew. Since then, Shelley has served in various roles to divert children from the path she knows too well. She received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Social Work degrees from the University of Nevada-Reno and now works as a juvenile probation officer.
[1]: http://juvjustice.org/award_5.html